Sarah Silverman has worked with “Funny or Die,” but now she can officially start her own website called “Funny or Lie.” The comedian recently recounted the time club owner Al Martin allegedly paid her less money than Todd Barry because she was a woman, and then apologized when Mr. Martin publicly excoriated her on for lying. In incredibly strange fashion she then called honest people “maniacs.”

Here is what Ms. Silverman said in a PSA for the women’s organization Levo League on April 6:

“I did a show. I was out with my friend Todd Barry, and we were doing sets around town together. […] We were outside talking and Todd somehow brought up that he got 60 bucks. He just got $60, and I got $10. We did the exact same time back-to-back on the same show. And so I went back inside, and I asked the owner Al Martin, and I said ‘Al, why did you pay me $10 and you gave Todd Barry $60?” It was so perfect, he said ‘Oh, did you want a $60 spot?’ It was symbolic. I didn’t need $60, but it’s, ummm, pretty shitty. …

If I tweet about anything women’s rights related, equal pay or health care or anything like that, that gets the most violent hate tweets back. It’s so odd. It’s just bizarre. That and gun control tweets. It creates such a rage in certain people and of course that comes from fear.”

Do you know what’s really “shitty,” Ms. Silverman? Lying about an issue when you know that your lie can ruin a man’s reputation that he worked an entire lifetime to build. That’s pretty “shitty.”

Here is what Mr. Martin said on Facebook when word got out that he was allegedly a sexist jerk:

“Are you kidding ? You come in to my club 15 years ago and ask me for a guest spot, I did not ask you to perform and you were not booked, and Then you ask me for pay? You asked to work out some material … Then you make this a gender pay thing? Sarah great cause I am with it, but I did not pay you less cause of gender … I paid you less because Todd Barry was booked and you weren’t … It was a GUEST SPOT, so I gave you some car fare, which actually is more than almost any club would have given for a GUEST Spot … Funny how in your attempt to become a super hero with a noble cause, you forgot that little fact … GUEST SPOT … GUEST SPOT.”

There is it in a nutshell: In Ms. Silverman’s quest to “become a super hero with a noble cause,” she decided that Al Martin’s reputation was expendable. She accuses others of having fear-based motivations for their responses to her commentary in the very same conversation she willfully lies about a man who tried to do her a favor. Even if one were to agree to the premise that Ms. Silverman’s critics operate from a fear-based emotional state, then it must also be noted that her dishonesty helps to fuel the fire.

The coup de grâce to the whole weird ordeal came with Ms. Siliverman’s “apology,” via Salon:

“To Al, I truly am sorry to bring you into this as you employ women and pay them the same as the men I’m sure. To the maniacs who want to use this as a chit against women’s issues, I ask that you please don’t. Because that would be super shitty. Feel free to aim your vitriol at me but leave this issue of working women out of it, K?” Ms. Silverman wrote.

There is that word again: ‘shitty.’ Again, it might not be a good idea for someone who just used an ends-justify-the-means interview in which she willingly opted to destroy a man’s good name in order to put herself up on a moral pedestal and forward a political agenda.

In Ms. Silverman’s world, honest people become “maniacs” the moment they cite her lies as proof that the whole pay-gap issue is more complex than pundits and “Funny or Die” comedians would have us believe. In Ms. Silverman’s world, apologies are only done right if they’re able to quickly deflect attention from her lies and onto some other ambiguous “shitty” group.

If Sarah Silverman and a man came into your office with equal resumes, and you hired the man because he had no known record of lying about former employers, would you be a sexist or would you be a rational human being?

It speaks volumes that when asked to recount a time when pay inequality directly affected her life, the only thing she could come up with was a giant lie.

The next time Sarah Silverman takes to Twitter to lecture you about any number of public policy issues, there is no need to send profanity into her feed. You can respond to her with two words: Guest spot.

Exit question: If a person believes we’re “all just a bunch of molecules,” are they more or less likely to feel bad about a lie that destroys a man’s good name?

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I'm a former Army guy who believes success comes through hard work, honesty, optimism, and perseverance.
I believe seeing yourself as a victim creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. I believe in God. I'm a USC Trojan with an MA in Political Science from American University.

11 comments

LOL, I really enjoyed Mr. Martin’s smack down on facebook. I gave you car fare! Cracked me up. Now that was some good comedy.

“…she willingly opted to destroy a man’s good name..”

That is the one thing that really bothers me about these culture wars and ideologies. I call it the politics of personal destruction. They think nothing of completely destroying somebody, men, women, people’s children, reputations, employment. It’s like if you can dehumanize anybody who disagrees with you, then anything you do to them is now acceptable and justified. We didn’t used to believe or promote those values. Lying now days is a huge problem, too. People will actually try to alter reality to make it conform with their politics and they so often do this with impunity.

When this story happened I had to write on it because it only further hammers home the point about Harry the-ends-justify-the-means Reid. What message does it send when the (now former) Senate Majority Leader blatantly lies about a man and then laughs it off once the damage has been done?

I’m into Day 10 of my Twitter suspension. Why? Because I called the company out for not doing anything to the guy who threatened my life. Whoever is responsible for suspending my account is a liar, but it doesn’t matter because a message had to be sent: Don’t question us. The guy who runs our social media account at my place of employment even reached out to Twitter’s press account. Response: silence.

I used to occasionally debate with an atheist friend of mine and I always said, “You think the world is messed up with God? You don’t even have a clue how horrifying a world without God would be.” A world in which lying is tolerated as long as it forwards a political agenda … a world where the politics of personal destruction is the norm — that is scary. We are going down a very dangerous path.

Oh, amen to that. These things start at the top and trickle down. People begin to follow the example set by their leadership. Our leadership, specifically our President, told people to “get in their faces,” or “they bring a knife, you bring a gun.” He set the tone, crush the opposition. Harry Reid and other assorted congresscritters led by example, too. So by the time this stuff gets down to Sarah, she thinks nothing of a man’s reputation, because culturally and politically she has been given permission to completely disregard such things.

I do find it interesting what jokes are deemed acceptable and which jokes are not by activist actors and comedians. When it comes to race, class, and gender issues it isn’t really about equality with them — it’s about power. Then, once power is attained, it’s about inflicting some sort of pain on others for real and perceived historical slights.

I like to go by the George Carlin way of comedy. You can make a joke about anything, it just depends on how you construct the joke. Course I’m probably paraphrasing it a bit, but that’s essentially what he said basically.

But with Silverman’s joke, there was little to no effort thrown into it. It was just a good old fashioned stab at anyone who’s not a feminist. Which (of course) feminists just lapped it right up. Literally just chalking it up to be “Oh if it’s a joke directed at men, that’s funny. But if it’s a joke directed at us, that’s misogyny!”.

“I do find it interesting what jokes are deemed acceptable and which jokes are not by activist actors and comedians. When it comes to race, class, and gender issues it isn’t really about equality with them — it’s about power. Then, once power is attained, it’s about inflicting some sort of pain on others for real and perceived historical slights.”

I find that to be interesting, too. They’re the speech police, and therefore get to determine what is acceptable and what isn’t, at least in their own warped minds.

I also go by the George Carlin way of comedy: make fun of everyone. Silverman (whom I’ve never found to be funny at all) could learn a thing or two from Carlin.

Also, sorry to hear about your Twitter ban, Doug. It’s beyond pathetic they banned you, but not the lunatic who sent you death threats.

Thanks, Carl. It’s Day 11 and counting. No word from Twitter at all. It’s unbelievable. I know someone has seen both of my appeals and both emails sent to their press account by my employer’s social media manager. It’s astonishing that they would behave this way.

I would also like to point out that the study used to “prove the pay gap” was terrible. You cannot take averages of groups and use that when the jobs are different in the sample. Another point to make is that not every employer pays the same so you have to compare the actual job on a case by case basis and the study did not do that.

Truth, you’re not supposed to mention any of that. Shhhh! If word got out that tortured statistics are being used to say what activists want them to say, then the whole charade would end. 🙂

When I was at USC I remember seeing some weird campaign by students that called for more female Math professors. Maybe it was physics. Regardless, they never stopped to ask how big the pool of female candidates the school had to choose from. How many women get a doctorate in these subjects each year? How many then want to go into academia? How many actually applied to work at USC? If the school looks for professors and all ten applicants are men, then how is it the school’s problem? It can’t magically pull female Math professors out of thin air. Usually I just feel embarrassed for the person who can’t be bothered to think these things through at anything more than a cursory level.